I had this whole thing written up and twice lost it about why I think tiny houses are so popular (in their niche market) right now.

Basically ...

- conspicuous non-consumption is a bit of a trend among certain upper-middle-class people (see the love of capsule wardrobes)
- general fun of getting something "custom" and new
- much bigger factor is probably how impossible it is to find any housing at all in the $300-800/month range (also part of why tiny houses are extra-popular in Portland and Denver where rents are comparatively bonkers; even in St. Paul I can't find a studio for under $700 a month and that's with shared walls, whereas if I build a tiny house for $30,000 and park it in a trailer park I'm probably $800 a month including utilities and I can drive off with it whenever I want). If you can legally or semi-legally park it on someone's land so much the better for your expenses.
- also impossible to find housing you can buy, outside maybe downtown condos, for under 1000 square feet. A 200-sq ft tiny house is way on the other side of a pendulum swing but if you want something smaller than 800 sq ft with a yard you're probably fucked zoning-wise
- mostly I'm just fucking annoyed because I would LOVE a tiny house -- be it stealth van, twee new build, or proper mobile home -- and it really fits our way of life, but I absolutely refuse to live anywhere in Minnesota that doesn't have a basement due to tornados, so I'm stuck with real foundations forever

The Houston Chronicle article about developers building smaller homes (last post on the previous page of this thread) had a lot of specifics about some of the developments and models of floorplan, so I went to look at some from one of the developers yesterday and I have to say...they felt small and I don't fully understand the business of "people don't want/use formal dining rooms." I mean, where are they eating? I was looking at a floorplan for a three-bedroom house with a decent-sized kitchen, but the kitchen had an optional island and even without it there wasn't really a ton of room for a table that four people would actually have all their meals at. I feel like you need a really big kitchen if you are going to do that. We have a little breakfast nook in our kitchen that we put our kitchen table in, and even for the two of us we don't actually want to have dinner there. We use the "formal dining room" every day.

I thought those floorplans were generally decent for a couple but I would not want to live there with kids--or at least, I wouldn't want to live in one AS a kid. The bedrooms were like 10x10, which is about what I have now and it's teeny tiny, and that would be your only private space since there's just an open kitchen-living room. Which also means that honestly even for a couple it's suboptimal for me. I need spaces where we can both be home without seeing or hearing each other sometimes.

The Houston Chronicle article about developers building smaller homes (last post on the previous page of this thread) had a lot of specifics about some of the developments and models of floorplan, so I went to look at some from one of the developers yesterday and I have to say...they felt small and I don't fully understand the business of "people don't want/use formal dining rooms." I mean, where are they eating? I was looking at a floorplan for a three-bedroom house with a decent-sized kitchen, but the kitchen had an optional island and even without it there wasn't really a ton of room for a table that four people would actually have all their meals at. I feel like you need a really big kitchen if you are going to do that. We have a little breakfast nook in our kitchen that we put our kitchen table in, and even for the two of us we don't actually want to have dinner there. We use the "formal dining room" every day.

I thought those floorplans were generally decent for a couple but I would not want to live there with kids--or at least, I wouldn't want to live in one AS a kid. The bedrooms were like 10x10, which is about what I have now and it's teeny tiny, and that would be your only private space since there's just an open kitchen-living room. Which also means that honestly even for a couple it's suboptimal for me. I need spaces where we can both be home without seeing or hearing each other sometimes.

I looked over the floor plan for the Taft model. You can get the office option, but the open concept is considered a feature. 10x10 is fine for a child's room with a tiny twin bed and tiny occupant.
I agree about the small dining room. I'd try to steal square footage from the kitchen and master* for the dining room. But what I REALLY want to do is this: Take out the peninsula between the kitchen and the living room. Increase the size of the island and put the sink and dishwasher there. Then add uppers, lowers, counter space on the interior wall. This gives more open concept with flow through the kitchen. The food prep area is nice and tight, sink, stove, fridge, cabinets all within arms reach of one spot! Even the pantry is just a step away. Plus more storage and counter space. Best of all, it discourages people from congregating in the kitchen. No room for stools at the island! If you're not doing food prep, keep moving.

Oh my god, don't even get me STARTED. I'm not saying every master bedroom should be the size of a postage stamp. But they keep building/renovating them to be bigger and bigger just to try to look like more of a feature. And a bed is only so big and you can only fit so many dressers in there before you look like a furniture store (plus people ALSO want walk-in closets for all their clothes). So then it's turning into "and here's an area to sit and read" "and here's an area you can use as a home office" and now it's like okay so your whole fucking house is inside the bedroom now, why do you even have any other rooms

The only way this can be done is one of those tiny 60s/70s kitchen separate from the rest of the house. Otherwise, you're screwed. People cluster in the kitchen. You can either be a militant borderline asshole and shoo them out constantly (raises hand) or just deal. The island with seating is actually a bonus for this, because it keeps the people on that side of the island instead of in the workspace.

Yeah but how can you tell at a glance which junk a raccoon is packing? Also, gay raccoons? - Hugh Akston
Nothing you can say is as important as the existence of a functioning marketplace of ideas, go set yourself on fire. - JasonL

Oh my god, don't even get me STARTED. I'm not saying every master bedroom should be the size of a postage stamp. But they keep building/renovating them to be bigger and bigger just to try to look like more of a feature. And a bed is only so big and you can only fit so many dressers in there before you look like a furniture store (plus people ALSO want walk-in closets for all their clothes). So then it's turning into "and here's an area to sit and read" "and here's an area you can use as a home office" and now it's like okay so your whole fucking house is inside the bedroom now, why do you even have any other rooms

I know right! You should see my parents B-Room with the close hanging off the treadmill and the boxes piled up on it!
The worst thing is once you get your big bed (And that's another thing, queen size is plenty big enough for two people. Nobody needs a king sized bed) and big dressers in there and have room to walk around, every additional square inch is stealing space from other rooms.

Apartment hunting with roommate(s) is a nightmare because of the fighting over the big bedroom. And it's not even that you begrudge the other guy all that space, it's that you have to confine yourself to a closet.

The isolated dining room is the most worthless trash space in any floor plan. I don’t think I have ever in my adult life seen one actually being used. A hybrid space connecting the kitchen to entertaining can easily accommodate a table of size - you don’t go longways table orientation with ends pointing at kitchen and entertaining across a long space, you more typically do perpendicular table orientation so the kitchen to entertaining are doesn’t have to be huge. I’m pro seating at island to keep people out of my prep triangle - trog’s point. Largish master is desirable if annex area is isolated entertainment area for one or a second office. So you have open area, office is isolated, master including small office annex is isolated, second and third bedrooms are isolated. Third bedroom is office with a pullout in some designs or if master too small to have own sitting area/office.

Tbh I also don't know who all these people are who are hanging out in the kitchen at entertaining-type times. We don't do that and it doesn't go that way at Dubs' parents' place either. Or at my parents' place where the kitchen is really in the middle of everything.

The isolated dining room is the most worthless trash space in any floor plan. I don’t think I have ever in my adult life seen one actually being used.

Are you serious? That's absurd. Don't you ever get invited into other people's homes? While I've seen formal dining rooms that are only used on "special occasions", if you don't have an eat in kitchen that can accommodate a full sized dining table, you need a dining room. It doesn't have to be walled off, but it often is.

The isolated dining room is the most worthless trash space in any floor plan. I don’t think I have ever in my adult life seen one actually being used.

Are you serious? That's absurd. Don't you ever get invited into other people's homes? While I've seen formal dining rooms that are only used on "special occasions", if you don't have an eat in kitchen that can accommodate a full sized dining table, you need a dining room. It doesn't have to be walled off, but it often is.

Yeah I mean my fam that I grew up in graduated to using the dining room every night when my sister was born, because we couldn't fit five people at the kitchen table. It wasn't a walled-off dining room, my parents have a traditional split-level, but at that time the attached living room didn't have a TV in it, and that was our formal living room that was only used when people came over, so it may as well have been.

(Later, my dad put up a wall downstairs so my brother had the old den as his bedroom, and that meant we started using the formal living room as a family/TV room, so now they do have the TV on while at the dining table at dinner, but it wasn't like that for most of my childhood.)

Tbh I also don't know who all these people are who are hanging out in the kitchen at entertaining-type times. We don't do that and it doesn't go that way at Dubs' parents' place either. Or at my parents' place where the kitchen is really in the middle of everything.

Oh my god, don't even get me STARTED. I'm not saying every master bedroom should be the size of a postage stamp. But they keep building/renovating them to be bigger and bigger just to try to look like more of a feature. And a bed is only so big and you can only fit so many dressers in there before you look like a furniture store (plus people ALSO want walk-in closets for all their clothes). So then it's turning into "and here's an area to sit and read" "and here's an area you can use as a home office" and now it's like okay so your whole fucking house is inside the bedroom now, why do you even have any other rooms

My current master is too small. Small closets, small bathroom with not enough storage, small main room with not enough room for dressers. Too big > too small.

Doesn't help that I'm tall and have a dog that's far more persistent at super high pitched whining than I can be at saying she can't be in the bed, so a queen is unworkably small. I really feel like I should be in a california king. So two dressers, a wall of closet doors because closets aren't walk-in, and a big bed, and everything's terrible. If it's big enough that there can be a chair, then it's big enough for everything else.

"The constitution is more of a BDSM agreement with a safe word." - Sandy

"Neoliberalism. Austerity. Booga booga!!!!" - JasonL

"We can't confirm rumors that Lynndie England is in the running to be Gina Haspel's personal aide." - DAR

Oh god. Like their dining room is a saloon?
I'm not a fan of eating in the living-room in front of the TV. Mostly on account of a 'No food in the living room' rule to keep the house from becoming a shitpit. I have done it, and will allow it, but not as every day "This is how we eat".
Eating off TV trays in the living room is one thing, but the image of a family gathered around the dining table with a TV in the dining room makes me all NOOOOoooooo.

I have seen dust covers over furniture dining rooms. I have seen cat playground dining rooms. I’ve seen most often laundry accumulation dining rooms. I’ve not sat in or eaten in a stand-alone dining room in at least 20 years.

Oh god. Like their dining room is a saloon?
I'm not a fan of eating in the living-room in front of the TV. Mostly on account of a 'No food in the living room' rule to keep the house from becoming a shitpit. I have done it, and will allow it, but not as every day "This is how we eat".
Eating off TV trays in the living room is one thing, but the image of a family gathered around the dining table with a TV in the dining room makes me all NOOOOoooooo.

Isn't this exactly the point of everyone talking about combining dining and entertaining? Aren't we all talking about having dining areas where you can see the TV?

Because if not I'm even more confused about why you would want them connected.

I have seen dust covers over furniture dining rooms. I have seen cat playground dining rooms. I’ve seen most often laundry accumulation dining rooms. I’ve not sat in or eaten in a stand-alone dining room in at least 20 years.